Governments cannot stay silent on the threat against Israel after flydubai hijacking - editorial

The flydubai incident does not become any less worthy of condemnation because the involved prevented its worst possible consequences.Follow us on GooglePM Netanyahu meets with Yaniv Hayoun, Or Pardilov, and Dr. Shota Musayev and his wife, Sigalit on October 1, 2026.(photo credit: AMOS BEN GERSHOM/GPO)OCTOBER 2, 2026 06:01A flydubai airliner carrying 174 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv plunged nearly 14,000 feet on Wednesday during a violent incident in its cockpit. Israeli officials said the copilot had stabbed the captain and tried to crash the aircraft. Several passengers have separately described helping crew members restrain him before other flydubai pilots aboard landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia.Everyone survived, and that should not have made the incident easier for the world to overlook. Yet by Thursday, the international response to cockpit violence that placed hundreds of civilians in danger remained remarkably subdued.The limits of what is known must be kept clear. The claim that the copilot intended to crash the plane remains an Israeli assessment, not a finding by Emirati investigators. Authorities have not officially established the suspect’s identity, motive, or whether he acted alone. None of this had changed by press time.Flydubai said an altercation occurred on the flight deck and that crew members aboard secured the aircraft and diverted it to Tabuk. The United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority called it a “security incident” that injured crew members and forced an emergency landing. Flight-tracking data recorded the sharp descent and showed the aircraft transmitting 7500, the international code for unlawful interference.The UAE attorney-general has formed an investigation team to establish what happened and determine whether the incident was connected to terrorism or involved advance planning or direction. Flydubai and Emirati authorities have urged the public not to reach conclusions before that work is complete.Israelis reunite with their loved ones who were on the hijacked flydubai flight at Ben-Gurion Airport on September 30 2026. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)They are right. No responsible government should declare a terrorist conspiracy before the evidence is in. But uncertainty over motive is not a reason to avoid condemning the violence already confirmed.How will the world respond to the flydubai hijacking attempt?India responded by honoring Capt. Smit Machchhar, the injured Indian pilot. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Droupadi Murmu praised his courage. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong thanked those who intervened and wished the injured a full recovery.US President Donald Trump, who discussed the incident after speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged that the full account had not been established. The United Nations said it was following developments and was thankful that a major tragedy had been averted.Beyond that, the reaction was thin. The UAE opened a formal investigation, but Saudi Arabia had issued no substantive statement about its investigation by Thursday morning, Reuters reported. Oman had not commented on the Israeli report that the suspect was an Omani national. By early Thursday afternoon, no public condemnation had come from the European Union’s leadership or most major Western governments.What more is required before they speak? Condemning the confirmed violence would not require endorsing every Israeli account. It would not require calling the incident terrorism, assigning a motive, or accusing another country of involvement. It only would require saying that violence in the cockpit of a passenger aircraft is intolerable and demands a thorough, transparent investigation.The absence of a death toll should be a source of relief, not an excuse for indifference. An act does not become less worthy of condemnation because the people caught up in it prevented its worst possible consequences.Passenger aircraft are not battlefields. The International Civil Aviation Organization requires states to report unlawful or attempted seizures and other acts of unlawful interference, because a breach aboard one aircraft can expose vulnerabilities affecting travelers everywhere.Passengers also cannot be treated as extensions of the government at their destination. People do not lose their claim to international concern when they board a flight to Tel Aviv.Flight FZ1073 connected two countries that established relations under the 2020 Abraham Accords. Flydubai inaugurated scheduled commercial service between Dubai and Tel Aviv that November, making direct aviation one of the agreement’s most visible results. The people placed at risk on Wednesday included an Indian captain and passengers of several nationalities aboard an Emirati aircraft bound for Israel.The heroes aboard FZ1073 did not have the luxury of waiting for perfect information. They saw a cockpit in chaos and acted. Governments have official confirmation of violence aboard a civilian aircraft and the safety of solid ground. As such, they should be able to manage a sentence.Follow us on Google